


Timaeus

by dreamyemptysouls



Series: HSWC 2014 [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Cuddling, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Pacific Rim AU, Sadstuck, Suicide ideation near the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 14:39:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1714262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamyemptysouls/pseuds/dreamyemptysouls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <b>Dirk♥John ( & Dave )</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Remember when Dirk's boyfriend turned out to be drift compatible with his brother, and how completely terrified he was about losing them both in one fell swoop?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Timaeus

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [HSWC 2014 Bonus Round 1](http://hs-worldcup.dreamwidth.org/18819.html?thread=3371395#cmt3371395)
> 
>  **Reccommended listening:** [Thrice - Daedalus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyYNHK6ZUlY)
> 
> I'm not sorry at all.

_"Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your state in our histories. But one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour. For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles; [...] in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent"_

  
**― Plato, Timaeus/Critias**

**2012**

The first time you brought your boyfriend home, you warned him to be careful with the "baby" lurking inside. The look of confusion on his face when you showed him your twin brother was absolutely priceless.

You had been dreading this meeting for a while now. Close as you were to your brother, in age, in intimacy, in living quarters for the past decade, it was hard to introduce anything that would imbalance the status quo between Dave and you, and a boyfriend sure fell in that category.

He was slumping on the couch when John walked into the living room, arms hugging his knees and brow furrowed behind the awesome custom triangle shades that matched yours. 

You were nervous as you saw him notice the visitor and slowly get up, lean his face close to John's and peer at him thoroughly. John, on the other hand, looked completely unbothered by this sudden invasion of privacy, even as you sighed at your brother poking a bony finger to the cheek. Instead, he stared right back at Dave, a quirk on his lips that you knew all too well.

"So you're the one responsible for Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, huh?" were his only words, in a tone that was half mischief, half genuine joy.

You saw Dave's expression change from grumpiness to unashamed surprise, and you had never seen anyone bring your brother to speechlessness in this way before. John giggled, took hold of his hand and shook it.

"John Egbert, huge fan. I love the way you draw Sweet Bro's ass, but I personally feel that his facial hair is a little outdated."

You had never known anyone - let alone your boyfriend - who read Dave's horrid (and outrageously awesome) comic before. You mirrored John's smirk as you saw the cogs inside your brother's mind work. This was unprecedented. He was meeting a real life fan!

And sure he was tasked by blood to be aloof and rude towards anyone craving your sweet prince hand, but he never prepared for the miraculous possibility that this might be a fan of his hard work. The two realities collided in his mind, and you were pleased to see the outcome he ended up choosing.

He squeezed John's hand back.

"D-Dave Strider, and I'm glad my bro picked up a guy with flawless taste in online entertainment," his voice came, a mix of awe and pomp. "Nice to meet you, Egbert."

"Nice to meet you too!"

Dave got back on the couch, but this time left a respectful amount of room for both John and you. He sat first, plopping on the cushion right next to your brother, a huge grin on his face, and you followed suit.

This evening, you were more the observer than an active participant, but you liked what you were seeing.

John and Dave hit it off from the start. They discussed his comic, yes, but also video games about the apocalypse, action movies and the involvement of iconic stars such as Matthew McConaughey and Nicolas Cage in them. As Dave sipped from his apple juice, John reminded him of Little Monsters and the possibility of urine which made your brother scream. In turn, Dave started piling up every Betty Crocker product you had in the kitchen on the coffee table as soon as he learned of John's disdain towards the company.

By the time that the TV was completely veiled by a wall of cans of frosting and discarded juice cartons, their banter was a living thing on its own, and you decided that things couldn't have gone better.

Near midnight, after you made the two of them clean the whole living room, John's hand was tangled with yours as you watched a movie. Dave had long ago fallen asleep, his head shamelessly resting on John's shoulder.

Things were exploding on screen, but you leant in to press your lips to John's, and he replied in kind, warm and playful.  
"Thanks for handling my brother so well," you murmured, your head coming to nuzzle his other shoulder.

You felt him giggle and shake his head. His other hand came slowly to Dave's face, and he gently pushed a lock of hair away from his eyes. "He's a freaking doofus. But I think the three of us will be just fine, huh?"

You hummed in agreement.

You were pretty sure the worst part was over.

* * *

**2012**

A couple of months later, you remember how Dave was practically begging for you to ask John to move in. Every day he'd wait for you to get home and he'd pop the question, and all you did was tell him, "Not yet, it has to be perfect."

It took you almost a whole other month to pull all the right strings to have the ultimate proposal ready. You vehemently refused Dave's help on this, as you dreaded to imagine jpeg graphics all over your loving hard work, and he pouted. The night before the Big Day, you could barely sleep, even as John snored softly all around you, chin nestled in your hair, warm arms snugly wrapped on your waist, hands closed over the small of your back.

When he got up for work, to help run the ALL HOMEMADE bakery he owned with his father, you took your sweet time cradling his sleepy face, ruffling his hair, kissing his lips and, most importantly, placing the bait for your magnificent plan.

"Don't forget I'm picking you up for dinner tonight," you grumbled, as he pulled you into one last hug goodbye.

"I know..." he yawned. "I promise I'll change my underwear and shave."

"Ew," you chuckled, and he waved at you with puppy eyes before leaving.

You had exactly ten hours to get everything ready: the cheesy jazz band he adored in movies, the restaurant that served his favorite dish to perfection, the elegant suit you were going to wear. Throughout the day, all the marionettes you had placed oh so strategically over the course of the month came to play in perfect synchronization and you basked in the wonderful feeling of a plan going exactly the way you wanted it.

He laughed when you came to pick him up in your bright orange Vespa while you were both wearing suits. The meal itself was flawless, and so was the band playing right next to you. He sat with his chin rested on his hands throughout the whole thing, giving you side-glances with that warm grin he knew made you weak at the knees. As the band moved to the final stage of its songs, he giggled in a whisper, "You know... at this point I wouldn't be TOO surprised if you pulled out a diamond ring shaped like a ghost and asked me to marry you."

Oh boy. He was onto you. But that was alright: this was the exact time you had planned for his epiphany. You smirked back. "Well... How about if I put this key here..." there was a metallic clink on the dinner table, "... and ask you to move in with me?"

His eyes widened just as fast as his smile, and he muttered, "You magnificent bastard," before getting up and pulling you into a hug across the table.

When you drove back home well after midnight in the Vespa and he tested the key for the first time, he looked like a child holding exactly what he had wanted to get for Christmas. He tiptoed inside while holding your hand, and you were glad that the dark hid the smile on your face from him being such a dork so well.

You let go to close the door behind you and then you started making your way to your room, but you noticed John had stopped by the living room couch. He was hunched over it, and upon closer inspection, you saw that your brother was there, in a deep slumber. Of course, in all your plans, he had to be the constant outlier.

But that's okay.

John removed his shades, put them on the coffee table, then fetched a blanket from the back of the couch and placed it snugly over him. Dave woke for just a moment, enough to recognize John and put his arms around his legs, a smile on his face as he muttered a soft "Welcome home..."

While he drifted back to sleep, John gently ruffled his hair, carefully walking away as to not disturb him. He joined you back at the threshold to your room, and the look he had on his face, his stare focused on you and sapphire eyes glowing softly with the threads of light filtered through the curtains, made your heart pang with affection.

You placed your lips on his and tangled your hands together, and guided him to your - yours and his - bed.

* * *

**2013**

Much to your joy, having John around had little to no ill effects on your dynamics, and oh so many good things added. But then again you should have known this already, with all the time he was spending in your house even before the official move.

Dave was arguably the happiest with these new arrangements, and you saw his friendship with John flourish into something colorful, whole and very different from what you had with either of them. John gave him a new pair of shades, that he had bought off some movie memorabilia auction place, once belonged to Ben Stiller, and in return, Dave gave him the very bunny Nic Cage handled in Con Air. When you were out working and they were at home, they'd be huddled together on the couch, playing video games, trading harmless insults, and they'd both chime a greeting for you in unison the moment you arrived.

During meal times, even if you easily forgot them, Dave was always happy to see John move to the kitchen, prepare something impossibly tasty from the slim pickings in your fridge, which slowly became a full, nutritious fort of ingredients after he moved in. But the best part, you were sure, was when in confidence your brother hugged you for no apparent reason, with an intensity and passion you hadn't felt in him before.

When you asked him what was wrong, he merely thanked you. He said, because of John and you, he no longer felt pressured into finding a romantic relationship he wouldn't want to be in. Because of you and John, he was still himself and he wasn't lonely anymore.

So the three of you hung out together everywhere, consumed John's food eagerly, laughed heartily when John asked - while the owl was sleeping on his lap - why you had named your pet bird Plato? Was is after... plates? Like the dish?? That made no sense. John and you would work together in pranking Dave too, hiding Lil Cal where he'd least expect it, only to hear him screech hours later whenever he'd find it.

The three of you were also together, both you Striders with your head resting on John's shoulders, while the TV was on, playing some movie, when the broadcast suddenly changed to a disaster.

For the first few seconds, watching that gigantic lizard-like creature tearing down the city you immediately recognized as San Francisco, you believed you were still watching your movie.

"That's a really cool publicity stunt!" John laughed.

But as you quickly flipped through the channels, one after the next, they all displayed the same footage, they all showed the same amount of unbelievable destruction, brought to you by all these different reliable news sources. The laughter faded, right as the monster broke a whole building down.

"I don't think it's a publicity stunt, John..." Dave mumbled.

He was right. And after that, all you could do was watch in silence.

There were no yummy meals that night, no rest or relaxation. You kept your eyes on the TV, following the disaster closely, watching how intervention after intervention failed to bring the monster to a stop.

It was funny, in all those monster movies people always complimented the quality of the graphics, the realism of the animation and how life-like the creature looked, but right now, even as you stared at the monster directly, you could hardly trust your eyes, as if your sight blurred on its own, denying the reality of the events unfolding right before you.

John and Dave were dead silent, and that was, perhaps, the most frightening part of all.

At midnight, you made them turn the TV off and sent them all to bed, but they showed no sign of wanting to move. You ended up setting up a mattress in the living room, for all three of you. With you in the middle, under the covers, the both of them snuggled up to you and found some peace of mind in the darkness and silence at last.

But you didn't sleep that night. Even with closed eyes, the image of the monster bringing all those buildings to the ground played against your eyelids, followed by the look of half horror, half determination in the eyes of the two people who mattered the most to you.

For the second time in your life, again, after a disaster you had no control over, you were at complete loss of what to do.

John and Dave moved in their sleep, grumbling a little, holding you just a little closer, and for a moment, that was enough to bring you some peace too.

Focusing on the sound of John's breath and the steady beat of Dave's heart, you could pretend to find slumber for the night.

It took five whole days for the military to finally kill the monster, with three nuclear missiles aimed at what people believe were its vital organs.

They named it "The Trespasser". On the next day, no remains of the creature were left on site.

For a couple of months after the incident, the media made sure to pressure everyone in charge for answers: what was that thing? Where did it come from? Was the threat really over now? What were they going to do, how would they rebuild the devastation left?

The lack of knowledge was incredible, and understandable, with those in charge just as confused as the rest of you. Rumors abounded, as well as conspiracy theories: this was the end of the world, more monsters would come, there was a huge hole in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, this wasn't a lone incident!

Many charities were carried out, and you and Dave helped John and his dad run a few campaigns with the bakery, raising funds to send out to a fellow West Coast city.  
While you helped him carry a full tray of cupcakes to serve to the Snootiest and Richest in town, you told him, "I think it's wonderful of you, to do this."

But John still seemed sad in his reply, "I wish I could do more."

Four months after the attack, everyone seemed to have agreed on forgetting it altogether, as if the part of the brain that persuaded your sight to grow blurry while looking at the monster was trying to protect you all from thinking about this too much as well.

You saw Dave and John smiling and joking around once again, and allowed yourself to give into this calm too. It was a relief, to feel like you were back in control.

* * *

**2017**

Four years later, you would laugh bitterly at how naïve you had all been.

Right after the media and the crowds began to settle, a new monster emerged, and four more after it. They called them "Kaiju", the Japanese word for "strange creature" made popular by horror movies where giant monsters took over whole cities, and just like the tiny, tiny people in those movies, the world had no idea of what to do.

Maybe those rumors were true. Maybe it really was the end of the world, and people were starting to believe it. In your little town, not a day passed that the ocean wasn't stared at with fear, with prayers. What if you were next?

Fortunately, the attacks lasted less now, but the devastation they left behind was still incredible, in goods, structures, in lives, and you were not surprised to find out that the Powers That Be already had plans to build better weapons.

At the time, you had no idea just how awesome these weapons really were.

Rumors about a Jaeger program started after the fourth attack. The media loved these, and did its best to exaggerate them, running with any conspiracy theory they could find. Among the fear and the stress, it was a pleasant time whenever a new theory was discussed while Dave, John and you watched TV, and your boyfriend even admitted to have called the network anonymously himself sometimes, tipping them off on absurd rumors he'd make up on the spot.

He and Dave had a game going on: every time a news station used one of John's ridiculous suggestions as a valid theory, Dave would clean the house and feature him in his comic.

So far, your favorite of John's winning fake-hypothesis was the alien theory. "Jaeger is the word for a bunch of aliens from another dimension with grey skin and horns like candy corn. The government is totally employing them as HUNTERS."

However, all rumors were finally laid to rest when the Jaeger Program was officially announced. And boy, was it better than anything you could ever imagine...  
When you first saw the footage of the fifth attack, and there was a gigantic robotic human punching the daylights out of the Kaiju, you thought it was yet another publicity stunt in poor taste.

But, just like the first time, against all odds, it was the truth.

The three of you saw the fight, the three of you saw how the Kaiju was vulnerable to this new weapon. The three of you saw the Jaeger kill the monster.

The three of you - the whole world - hoped.

After that, humans began to turn the tide - pun intended - on this war.

The world as a whole knew that financing these gigantic androids, brilliantly commanded by two people sharing the load, connecting their minds, was their best chance of survival, and many Jaegers were built, right around the rim of the Pacific, the only place where attacks seemed to happen.

More Kaiju came, and the Jaegers killed them, seemingly effortlessly. People rejoiced.

You polished up your knowledge on robotics, and started studying the bottom of the sea, where the monsters seemed to come from. You would see John practice fighting techniques by himself, sometimes brawl with Dave, you would see the two of them work on more campaigns in the Egberts' bakery, PLEASE SUPPORT THE JAEGER PROGRAM, and you knew. The three of you wanted to be more involved.

And fortunately, the chance presented itself soon enough.

A Shatterdome - the place where Jaegers came to life - was built in Los Angeles, and soon afterwards, the whole West Coast was teeming with posters: Join the Jaeger Academy, Save your Country. Between the two of them, John and Dave must have brought about a hundred of those home, spreading them all over the walls and the furniture, a silent plea to you.

As much as you wanted to be involved, you still held the leaflets and stared at them with a furrowed brow, wondering it was the best idea, if this would keep your little family safe. But the more attacks happened, the more you feared that sitting here still would do nothing in your favor.

The three of you enlisted in the Jaeger Academy and moved to the Shatterdome in L.A... Dave and you had no family to see you gone, but John and his father's departure was bittersweet. With tears gathered in the corner of his eyes, he walked away from the bakery after a long, long hug, carrying a huge cake shaped like a robot and a sticky note reading, "I'M SO PROUD OF ALL OF YOU, SONS" dangling from the plastic cover.

The cake you shared on your bus ride to Los Angeles was the last moment of true rest and sweetness for the longest time.

As it turned out, training to be a Jaeger pilot was a lot less romantic than TV made it out to be.

It was a program that lasted almost half a year, which came in stages, and half of the recruits were gone by the end of the first week.

Dave and John had only you to thank for passing the first stage: your knowledge of engineering and strategy got through them after hours of tutelage bribed with video games, and you made sure that they were doing well in class. There were only ten recruits remaining when the second stage started and you were taken to the combat room.

All three of you fared well in individual combat - it turned out John's brawling training with Dave helped him gain the muscle frame he lacked before.

But by the time one-on-one combat came round and the higher ups started running tests on "Drift Compatibility" - the juice that made the Jaegers run - you were all surprised to see the results...

... that you had very little compatibility with your twin brother (heck even if you were not IDENTICAL twins, you'd think some would be there), and just about the same amount with your boyfriend.

(You had noticed how much they held back when they were fighting you, as if scared of hurting you.)

... that your boyfriend and twin brother had one of the best compatibility scores the academy had ever seen.

(You had seen their fights and how they were like visual poetry, swift, dynamic, a dialog of aggressions that had nothing violent in them - they often laughed during their combats and hugged it out when they were done.)

So by the end of stage two of your training, you were asked if you wanted to join the engineering team, which you promptly accepted... while John and Dave carried onto Pons training, where they'd finally prove to be good enough to pilot a Jaeger together.

You weren't there when they Drifted for the first time, but you heard their excited chattering the moment they returned to your little home in the Dome, of how there had been tears and a huge hug that knocked your neural headpieces together, and SOME MEMORIES DAVE WISHED HAD COME WITH AN NSFW WARNING.

You couldn't help but smile and tear up as well, though, when both of them hugged you in turn, in the right amount of tightness and intensity that you liked and confessed that the most important thing they shared was their undying and unconditional love for you.

So, as they carried onto polishing their Drift, you knew you had to turn that love into an armor, for them to wear, for none of the Kaiju to tear through.

They were learning to walk together, to keep each other balanced, to fight, and in the meanwhile the higher ups let you be responsible for the construction and maintenance of their future Jaeger.

Piece by piece, you wrote your own love poem for them, as a gigantic robot, and if you were all three in this together, then you'd make sure to pull at all the strings to keep them perfectly safe.

After all, you were known for your less than orthodox gestures of affection.

* * *

_"Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind. She was pre-eminent in courage and military skill, and was the leader of the Hellenes. And when the rest fell off from her, being compelled to stand alone, after having undergone the very extremity of danger, she defeated and triumphed over the invaders, and preserved from slavery those who were not yet subjugated, and generously liberated all the rest of us who dwell within the pillars."_

**― Plato, Timaeus/Critias**

**2018**

By the end of your graduation as accomplished Jaeger pilots and engineer, you were able to gift the two people who mattered the most to you with their own armor of love.  
Their Jaeger, Hammer Time, was a gigantic weapon in reds and blues that combined swiftness, balance and strength, capable of not only delivering an array of timed attacks on the enemy but also of keeping its ground while parrying their blows. You had also equipped it with a fitting hammer, to use whenever punches didn't quit do the trick.

Conveniently enough, all was finished just in time for the next Kaiju attack on the West Coast, and John and Dave donned their new suits and wide grins with pride when they got to pilot Hammer Time for the first time.

From a distance, you watched the machine come to life, every little motion magnified a billion times, and let out a sigh of relief as all the gauges read green and blue: it was all working well. You almost smiled when someone patted you in the back, congratulating you on your job, and you crossed your fingers as you watched them go.

The Category III Kaiju, codename Cookiecutter, was a slim, slippery beast with impossibly long and sharp teeth who spewed blood as a defense, and as Hammer Time fought to pin it down, your heart was on your figurative sleeve. What if the metal coating wasn't thick or strong enough? What if the monster was too fast for them? What if they didn't make it?

It had to be worse, to sit here and ruminate over every little detail that could go wrong than to be out there fighting, pumped with adrenaline and the comforting presence of a loved one, but you still had to do this. For them.

Gladly, your fears were unfounded this time, as John and Dave showed flawless coordination, braved through the bright blue blood spill (or "getting slimed", as John called it) and knocked Cookiecutter to the ground, slaying it with a single strike of their hammer.

As the Kaiju was declared dead, all of Los Angeles rejoiced and through the intercom, you could hear John and Dave's joining them. Seeing the Jaeger coming back, and then them getting out of it was enough to let you breathe again. They held you in unison, and your grip on them was so tight your shades almost slid off.

It didn't take long for the city to make heroes out of your brother and your boyfriend. The media took an automatic endearment to them, as they replied to the cliché background questions with, "Well, me and my dad used to run a bakery before this!" and "I just drew bad quality comics on the Internet."

For them, the higher number of Kaiju landing only seemed to bring more chances to prove themselves, and they did so beautifully.

Humanity could smile again: everyone was so sure this menace would be over soon. The Jaegers were a God-sent gift that would save you all, and no one really dared question that, such was the fragility of this new-found hope.

Jaeger pilots were the deities of this new generation, and all culture didn't waste any time painting them as such. Merchandise was everywhere, turning Kaiju into toys and pilots into action figures, and one day John and Dave came back with a tiny, pose able Hammer Time in their hands.

"A hero for our hero," they said and they gave it to you, and you stared at it for the longest time. It was a strange feeling to have a whole planet glorify something of your own creation, and you almost allowed yourself to give into it.

"You must be so proud, having two pilots in your family!!" everyone would tell you, with stars in their eyes, and you wanted to share their blind confidence.

But you still feared.

Attack after attack, you obsessively ran through all the processes and gauges and data, double and triple checking them before sending Hammer Time off to fight another monster.

Victory would unavoidably come, as well as the subsequent applause and glory, but as you stayed behind and looked after the Jaeger's repair, you would find the spots where sometimes the Kaiju's claws would go through, or its teeth, or where pieces lost power, and you got scared.

What if they had dug in just a little further? What if your armor wasn't strong enough for next time?

Almost shaking, you still repaired the robot flawlessly, but when you got home and the miniature stared at you, you could only stare back and pray under your breath, "Please. Please be enough."

So, in a way, perhaps the Jaegers had become a deity for you too, like guardian angels or patron saints.

John and Dave knew you were worried.

Armed with their new knowledge of you, spawned from two very different perspectives melded together, they now understood you perhaps better than you understood yourself.  
The Drift allowed them to be unbeatable as a DDR team and to blackmail each other with super-secret childhood memories, but it also allowed them to know just how to spoil you rotten.

Your nerves were as tense as charged wire, but they knew just how to coordinate gifts, gestures, words and activities to unwind you.

Sometimes you were terrified, to the point where the terror would make you feel like the loneliest person in the world, but then Dave would hold you just like your Mom used to when you were kids, or John would sit your head on his lap and play with your hair until you fell asleep, and their love was a driving light much stronger than Kaiju, or Jaegers, a connection that required no Pons training or drifting chamber, that flowed freely between the three of you and kept you sane.

They had so much faith in you, in your armor, and in turn they were ready to risk it all to keep you safe.

You had to believe that was enough.

You prayed to the tiny idol in your living room, an almost perfect copy of your creation in red and blue plastic, and you believed.

* * *

**2020**

Three years after Hammer Time was first shown to the public, you remember being asleep in a nest of Egbert warmth and blankets and being rudely awaken up by your brother knocking violently on the door. "You guys have to see this!" he said, his face a mix of worry and disbelief. You were quick to follow him to the living room, where a live-stream of a Jaeger inner camera was already playing. What you saw horrified you.

John, sleepy and confused, saw it last. But the display on the screen was more than enough to sober him up.

Yancy Beckett, one of the pilots of the famous Jaeger [Lady] Danger, had just been killed by a Kaiju, which proceeded to destroy most of the weapon's front. You eagerly watched his younger brother, Raleigh, as he attempted to pilot the Jaeger all the way to the shore after he slayed the monster. At some point, you lost the feed from the Jaeger, and the stream ended. You hadn't realized up till then, just how tightly you were holding John and Dave's hands.

News that the Jaeger Program wasn't all-mighty spread like wildfire, and it was tragic, really, to see how quickly the pilots lost their deity status. "We'll get over this!" John would reply, with a wide grin and trust-worthy tone, whenever civilians casually asked him about the incident. "Nobody knew where they were, so it was harder to help them... it probably won't happen again!"

You wished with all your heart that he was right, but providence felt otherwise inclined.

From then on, with more Kaiju emerging, bigger and deadlier as time went by, the accidents only continued, worse and worse with every attack.

You would read up on reports describing the pilots' deaths and the damage to their Jaeger, and your brain ran a thousand calculations at once, making sure that Hammer Time was covered where these had failed, that the same wouldn't happen to your family.

As a whole, the world felt betrayed by the Jaegers, watching their loved ones die in mass once again, losing all faith in their old idols. Governments needed to look for a better, less expensive solution to rid themselves of the Kaiju, and so many Shatterdomes - including the one in L.A. - were discontinued in favor of building the Anti-Kaiju wall.

Dave drew a SBAHJ comic about it. In vivid, graphic detail, like only he could manage, he described how ridiculous of an idea it was, when these monsters were clearly capable of destroying whole buildings in a single blow, let alone a lousy wall. John laughed for days on end about it. It was the first time Dave's comic was truly famous.

Hammer Time was moved to Hong Kong, where the sole standing Shatterdome was, and its pilots didn't even hesitate in following it there. And you, of course, would follow them to the end of the world (and it actually felt like it was), so you made a new home, a sanctuary for the three of you, so far away from where you started.

Sometimes you'd all Skype John's father, and it was almost a relief, to see how he shared your worries rather than their careless enthusiasm. "I'll keep them safe," you would promise the older man, and oh you meant it. "I don't know what I'd do if they were gone."

Less available Jaegers meant they'd only rely on Hammer Time more, so your whole life turned into a gigantic ball of stress right there and then. You created a whole new AI system to aid you in maintenance, ironically called Hal and unironically using your own voice as it carried out its tasks. On your work table, Hammer Time's miniature toy sat like an idol on its shrine, and you prayed to it daily. In light of these recent developments, you worked hard to add some adjustments to the Jaeger's mechanisms, which felt more like the strings you used to be able to pull, to put you back in control, which you would keep a secret and hope would never be used at all.

With the attacks and deaths and the destruction increasing, with less funding coming to the Shatterdome, to your maintenance budget, to your armor of love, your mental health took a plunge right into the Breach.

It got to a point where you slept in the engineering room, making Hal keep up your work, and this was apparently the sign that John and Dave needed to intervene.

"I have a surprise for you..." John's voice came, on the second day you attempted the same feat. You made a point of ignoring it, like a toddler denying it had been caught red-handed doing something naughty. You kept fiddling with circuits on your work table, but he was having none of that.

You heard steps, and then felt his arms fold neatly around your sides, his nose rest against the base of your hair. And it was pathetic, just how frail your determination was at this point, how much you truly needed to be comforted.

You allowed yourself to sink into this, to fall against him, and he held you steadily, grounding you to sanity, like he had done through all the many years of your relationship.

You sighed, and he pressed sweet kisses to the nape of your neck, to your jaw, to your lips. He sighed, and you coaxed another kiss out of him, slow, lazy, relaxed, the first true thing you had felt in a very long time. When you pulled away for air, he pressed your foreheads together, rubbed his nose against yours, and you could see his smile, even if both of you had your eyes closed. You smiled too, albeit tiredly, despite yourself.

He held both your hands in his, and his long, gentle fingers slid between yours. He brought them to his lips, and kissed them too. You called him adorable and he cooed.

"I do have a surprise for you, though..." he giggled through a whisper, stepping back and tugging at your hand, connected to his. "Follow me..."

He led you away from your workplace, but you never left the Shatterdome. You ended up walking so many corridors, until you entered a wide but empty room, save for the picnic set in the middle of it, made of so many scraps of rare, delicious food that was so hard to come by in this recession, and Dave was there too, lighting three candles that provided the only source of light.

"Thought you guys wouldn't come!" he exclaimed, a sly look on his face, and John poked him in the stomach.

There were cushions around the picnic table, and they sat you in the middle one, between them. You stared at all the food before you - even pastries from John's old bakery! - and you almost started tearing up there and then.

But the other two were already digging in, and you were suddenly reminded of how hungry you were, to which you replied by digging in as well.

By the time all the food was cleared up, Dave was so sleepy that he passed out on the floor, huddled with a few more cushions and a blanket.

But not you. For the first time in a long while, you felt oddly alert, yet almost peaceful of spirit. You tucked your brother in, pushing his hair away to kiss his forehead, but you wouldn't sleep.

You laid down on the cushions with John too, but neither of you were sleepy. Both of you resting on your sides, you took your sweet time studying him, with calloused hands touching his face, his neck, all the way down his torso. You had spent all this time, going through all this stress just to keep them safe at all costs, but in the process you almost forgot they were right here, and even if they were so confident, inside the giant robot you made for them, they still needed just you.

John slowly returned the gestures, paying closer attention to your hair, and you pushed yourself closer to him so that you could steal another kiss.

And another.  
And another.

It was only later that you finally grew sleepy, all tangled up with John, faces nuzzling together and wearing goofy smiles. He made sure you were comfortable enough as you settled for sleep, but before the night was over, he had one last surprise for you.

His hand was holding yours once more, and you felt him press something round, small and metallic to your palm. At the exact moment you realized what it was, you heard him ask, "Will you marry me, Dirk?"

You hoped he still heard the 'yes', as you slid the ring on your finger, held him tighter and finally teared up on him until you fell asleep.  
Maybe this was a sign of better days to come, of the return of normalcy. The ring was more than just one promise, and you would hold him and Dave up to all of them.

* * *

_“But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea.”_

**― Plato, Timaeus/Critias**

Dave saw the ring on your finger in the next morning, and he proceeded to hug the heck out of you both, all bedhair and askew shades. "My brother is gonna be a wife..." was all he could say, and you heard John laugh against the two of you.

Apparently, there was still more food when the dinner had come from, and they reset the table for breakfast in a whole new assortment of goodies. You gobbled up your share with pleasure.

After that, cleaning up the room and getting ready for work was just another normal part of your routine.

You walked into the dome itself, and all three of you had already decided that you were going to announce your engagement that day.

John was opening his mouth to call everyone when the Kaiju alert siren started blaring.

John and Dave sighed collectively, but they were still smiling, and Dave ruffled your hair while John planted a kiss on your lips before they hurried to Hammer Time. You watched them go with a ridiculous grin on your face, and you made your way to the control room while taking your sweet time.

"Category IV Kaiju!" you heard someone announce the moment you arrived, and the picture of the monster, narrow like a snake but with a large head with spikes showed in the hologram projector. "Codename: Yaldabaoth."

You watched the live-feed from the Jaeger as they started it up and were carried into the scene. You saw John and Dave's faces on the screen, focused, determined, hopeful, and a pang of affection hit you.

You wished you had held them both one more time before they left.

Hammer Time engaged Yaldabaoth in battle soon enough, and it looked like it was going to be an easy kill. They had managed to pin it down and draw their hammer, and the hit was imminent.

But then things took a turn for much, much worse.

It happened so fast, too fast for even the cameras to understand what exactly changed. The monster moved its tail and suddenly it was away from the Jaeger's grasp, ready to attack once more.

The last thing you saw before Hammer Time was cut open was the glow around Yaldabaoth's spikes, and the fire that rained upon them from it. And then, the armor that you had designed with such care was gone, tons of metal slashed away in a second.

There was a gaping hole in the heart of Hammer Time, and even if John and Dave could see it, they powered through. But you remembered how badly that had gone for the Beckett brothers, and you were going to do your best to prevent that at all costs.

While the other officers were distracted, preparing other Jaegers for help, you snatched the intercom away and ordered, "Hal, code red now."

The Jaeger stopped its attacks all of a sudden, only to gather its whereabouts and start making his way back to the Shatterdome, so much more slowly than usual, with all the damage it went through.

You could see the confusion and hurt in John and Dave's faces from the screen, when they realized they had been robbed of their own free will, but they didn't give it away peacefully.

Dave argued with the AI, but all he got back was its cold, "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."

It didn't take them long to change their strategy and focus all their efforts on you, the responsible for this change.

"Let us fight, Dirk," their voices would come, as Hammer Time stepped back on the coast. "There's no one else here who can do it... if you make us go back, this thing will burn the whole city down..."

Your hands were tense, their grip tight and painful on your hair, on the intercom. You couldn't listen to them, not when this decision was bringing them back home, unharmed, not when there was a chance that you'd see them again. You shook your head violently.

The rest of the team was done asking for help, and they noticed what you had done. In panic, they expended all their efforts in overriding your auto-pilot program, but with no success. You had planted it too deep.

"Are you insane, Strider!!? Stop playing games and do your job!!"

Yaldabaoth was still chasing them. If they slowed down even just a little bit, it would tear them to shreds. Help would still take so long to come.

"Dirk..." John's voice came, and you couldn't help but look.

"We came here... to help, didn't we? We joined the force because... we wanted to do more... If you... if we run away now... all of that will be in vain..."

"Yeah, bro," Dave joined him. "We have to save them, together. Please trust us... We've always trusted you..."

You didn't know when the tears started streaming down your face, or why you allowed yourself to be persuaded when you were so sure this wouldn't end well, but maybe those were just the choices of a soldier.

Some soldiers fight with weapons, and they attack the enemy directly, defend their home.

But some soldiers watch through the looking glass and don't stop thinking, about which is the best solution for their companions, for the home they are trying to defend.

All soldiers know that they relinquish control in the face of tragedy, and that is maybe the hardest part to you. You speak to the intercom again, and auto-pilot is overridden.

Yaldabaoth catches up with them and wraps around their body, but they don't give up the fight.

You said the words "I love you," over and over against the intercom, and you hope that they serve as armor too, a barrier that covers when metal cannot, as they pin the monster down once more. 

"I love you too," their voices say back, full of passion and truth, and again you are reminded of what they said, that their drift is most potent when they think about you.

The hammer is drawn, and it lands on the creatures head, effectively killing it. Right at the same time, its tail pierces through the Jaeger, effectively killing its pilots too.

In one fell swoop, the two people who meant everything to you are gone for good, just so the rest of the world can be safe for now.

You remember very little from what happened next, except for the floor, for the engagement ring burning in your finger, the Hammer Time toy crumbling to plastic pieces in your hands.

You remember sorrow, tears, and a bed, and not wanting to wake up ever again.

* * *

_"There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes.”_

**― Plato, Timaeus/Critias**

Today, the war against the Kaiju is still far from over, and you don't know if it will ever end.

You still have your little workshop in the Shatterdome, where you can mess with Jaeger engineering, but these days you mostly take to sitting on the floor, burying yourself in cushions and firmly believing you can still feel their scent in the fabric.

Oh, how you wish you could help more.

Oh, how you wish you had held them one last time, before they left.

You look at the sea, and your wishes go against the tide: let more giants emerge from the depths and bring what they took back to you.


End file.
